This and That

I've seen my share of wild and crazy $2-5 NL games from my perch in the zero seat.

One hand yesterday really had me shaking my head. The 9s put the $10 straddle on. The 10s mucked. The 1 through 4 seat called the $10. The 5s bumped it up to $50 straight. The 6s through the 3s called the $50 (minus the 10s who mucked under the gun). The 4s then goes all in for $409 total. The 5s calls with $261 total. The 6s & 7s muck. The 8s &9s both call the $409. Everyone else mucks. In the event that you don't have a calculator handy, the main pot is now $1,289($1 high hand rake and $4 house rake deducted) and the side pot is $444 for a total of $1733.

The only board card that I can remember was an 8 on the flop. There were no straight and no flush possibilities although there were two spades. The 8 and 9 seat checked all the way. The 4s is calling for a spade on the river. It doesn't come.

The 4s turns over 8-9 spades. He has a lonely pair of 8s.

Then, one by one the other three players start mucking face down.

The eights were good for $1,733.

Amazing.

***

From what I've heard, our $1,000,000 freeroll with $500,000 for first place is set to kick off on January 1st. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to obtain a copy of the rules and regulations. I certainly hope that the "how to qualify" information is released and heavily advertised soon.

***

What is it about a $1-2 NL game that makes it so unappealing from a dealers point of view? We rarely spread it but I have never dealt a $1-2 game that was anywhere close to ideal. On Saturday night I pushed into table 1. The game on that table started as $2-4 limit but the players asked that it be changed to $1-2 NL. All 10 players had blue chips. It was the type of game where none of the players had their chips in neat stacks of 20. Chips were everywhere. Even in the instances where players had some of their chips in a rack, it wasn't likely that there were 20 chips in each tube of the rack. There was a ton of action with "all in" being spouted left and right. Up to 3 side pots were not unusual. Three of four of the players acted like they had never played live poker before. I believe it.

I'm asking (screaming) for red chips for color ups and whenever possible putting chips in racks and making them full racks.

The players were having the time of their life.

Me?

Not so much.

I think I got out 7 hands in 30 minutes.

***

After the $1-2 fiasco I clocked out and headed out into the Las Vegas night in search of Linda.
She and a large herd of bloggers were at Caesars. I headed that way and drove into the parking garage. Twenty five minutes later I am STILL circling different levels of the Caesars garage looking for a space when the phone rings. It's Linda. She patiently listens to me rant and rave about the parking situation. The last time I was in that garage (also on a Saturday night) it took nearly 30 minutes to get out of the damn garage.
Note to self: VALET it you stupid idiot!

In any case the plans have changed and now I'm headed to the IP parking garage. PokerPro has arranged a demonstration of their dealerless table for the blogger crowd and everyone is headed there.
The IP garage(s) is, if possible, worse than the Caesars garage. It's like a maze with no exit point. Even after finding a parking spot it would be advisable to leave a trail of bread crumbs if you ever want to find your car again. Total lunacy. The whole IP complex is likely headed for a date with some explosives in the not so distant future. That's one implosion that I'll shed no tears over........

I approached the dealerless table demonstration expecting to hate it. After all, if PokerPro has it's way all poker dealers will be out of a job.

They had one large table set up tournament style and a small two seat heads-up version in operation.

It would have been nice to have been able to actually play on table, but since it was set up in tournament mode unless you were one of the lucky 10 players you were relegated to the sidelines. I did stand and watch for awhile. During most of my observation there were 4-6 empty seats. Had they had this set up for "live" play more people would have gotten a change to experience it.

One thing I did notice was that the table looked to be about normal size length wise but it was significantly wider than your typical poker table. With the cost of floor space in a casino this may be a concern. Then again, I hope that these tables don't soon make an appearance in a Las Vegas casino. On the other hand if this dealerless revolution grabs a foot hold and ............not even gonna think about it.

Although I didn't get hands-on time, I left, as I expected, not liking it so much.